Gordon Brown and Iraq

"There's an odd myth about Gordon Brown. His views on the war in Iraq are said to be unknown. Whether the myth is put out by Brownites to hint that change is imminent or by wishful thinkers on both left and right who desperately hope for a new Downing Street line on the Iraq disaster, it has no substance.It is not just that Brown was a member of the cabinet that decided on war. There is plenty of contemporary evidence that he was a wholehearted supporter, rather than a man who acquiesced in silence.

Two days before the House of Commons voted to attack Iraq, Brown endorsed the government case in measured terms on Breakfast With Frost. In cabinet he was more fervent. "Gordon launched a long and passionate statement of support for Tony's strategy," Robin Cook wrote in his memoirs of the last cabinet he attended.

In a dismal hint of his attitude to Europe - Nicolas Sarkozy, please note - Brown joined in the orgy of anti-French rhetoric that Downing Street orchestrated after Jacques Chirac said he was not yet ready to support a UN resolution for war. The then French president's statement saying he would cast a veto "tonight" was distorted into an alleged threat to block such a resolution at any point in the future. "Brown spoke animatedly about what France was saying - no to everything," Clare Short recalled in her memoir of the days leading up to the invasion."

"Brown must seize the day - and break with Bush now", by Jonathan Steele